Minor Fictional Characters in the Great War Trilogy

This article lists the various minor fictional characters who appear in The Great War trilogy, a sub-series of the Southern Victory series. These characters are identified by name, but play at best a peripheral role in the series. Most were simply mentioned or had a very brief, unimportant speaking role that did not impact the plot, and never appeared again.

Agrippa and Vespasian arranged to have Vespasian's cousin Pericles work with Pinkard after Cunningham was called to service in 1915. Unfortunately, Pericles was a Red, and was taken into custody.[5] Months later, Agrippa informed Pinkard that Pericles had been executed for sedition.[6]

Ajax was a small boy whose parents worked for Anne Colleton on the Marshlands plantation. When former butler Scipio returned following Colleton's summons, Ajax was dispatched to notify Colleton that Scipio had returned.[7]

Milo Axelrod (d. 1914) was a druggist in Richmond, Virginia. As the Great War began, he found one of his employees, Reggie Bartlett, attending a demonstration at Capitol Square when Bartlett was supposed to be minding the store and fired Bartlett.[9] He was conscripted into the Army shortly thereafter, and stopped a bullet with his face on the Maryland front.[10]

Homer Bradley was a sailor serving on the Jarvis during the Great War. In 1915, his ship reinforced the U.S. fleet in Pearl Harbor. He and his buddy Dino Dascoli were on shore leave when they ran into Sam Carsten doing busy work and who explained how the fleet had been suckered out into a trap by the Japanese Navy. The two expressed sympathy to Carsten who was stuck onshore while his ship was in dry dock and then Dascoli asked about having a good time in Pearl. Carsten told the two about Maggie Stevenson.[11]

Ralph Briggs was a C.S. Navy officer during the Great War. He commanded a submersible until 1915, when he and his ship were captured by the United States using a Q-boat, and sent to a prison camp in West Virginia.[12] After a period of captivity, Briggs met Reggie Bartlett. Briggs and Bartlett struck up a friendship,[13] and eventually, the two escaped together and reached the C.S. in 1916.[14] He was given command of another submersible which was captured by the USS Ericsson before the year was out. He scuttled his ship and was taken prisoner again. Upon learning he had escaped prison once, the US sailors wanted to murder him, though George Enos, who was present when he was captured the first time, spoke up on his behalf and he was taken prisoner again.[15]Roger Kimball often directed scornful remarks at his ill-fated friend's expense.[16]

Sergeant Bobby Brock was a Confederate cavalryman in Captain Hiram Lincoln's company at the start of the Great War. He commanded Stephen Ramsay's section and took part in the raid on Kingman, Kansas. While destroying a length of railroad track, the company was attacked by US cavalry protecting an armored car. Brock was killed by machine gun fire from the car.[17]

Butcher and the rest of the crew were captured by the Confederate ship Swamp Fox a few months into the war.[19] After some time in the Confederate camps, Butcher and the crew were returned to the United States as part of a prisoner exchange. The crew of the Ripple were taken home on a Spanish vessel.[20]

During the interwar period, Butcher became the successful captain of his own fishing vessel. He hired George Enos, Jr. when the latter left school.[21]

Byron was a mechanic in Lt. Jonathan Moss' aeroplane scouting squadron at the start of the Great War. He was often a victim of Lefty, a fellow mechanic, during their ongoing poker games. However, Byron was a diligent mechanic and didn't let this affect his ability to work with Lefty.[22] He and Lefty came running up with a stretcher when Moss made an emergency landing to take his wounded observer Percy Stone to an aid station.[23]

Luther Carlsen was part of a four man Martin one-decker formation that Lt. Jonathan Moss joined in the autumn of 1915. Carlsen was a big blond handsome man who thought of himself as a wolf with women but who Daniel Dudley, the formation leader said wasn't. When they took to the air the next day, Moss observed that Carlsen was a precise flyer, always exactly where he should be in the formation.[24] During an air-patrol outside of Guelph, Dudley spotted a column of infantrymen marching to the front and ordered the formation to dive and shoot it up. Carlsen and the others did so but his aeroplane was hit by rifle fire from the ground, caught fire and crashed killing him.[25]

During the assault on Fort William Rufus, a combat engineer ordered Sam Carsten to take Clem's place on a fuel hose when the latter was wounded. He told Carsten the hose and several others would let ten thousand gallons of two parts heavy diesel oil and one part gasoline be pumped down the ventilator shafts of the fort. They would then set off explosive charges to blow up the mixture and the fort. When the hose went limp, the engineer placed a small box by the vent and lit a fuse. He then ordered everyone back to the freighter that had carried the petroleum mix. Ten minutes later, that and several other charges went off blowing the concrete roof off the fort destroying it.[27]

Commodus was a Negro laborer attached to Reggie Bartlett's Army unit during the Great War. He was also a boxer. In 1915, Commdus had a bout with a Negro from the Confederate Marine Corps named Lysis, who'd toured various Army divisions, boxing their champion Negro boxers. Lysis knocked Commodus out in the third round. Bartlett, who'd lost a bet on Commodus, wondered how Lysis would do in a fight with a white man.[28]

Dino Dascoli was a sailor serving on the Jarvis during the Great War. In 1915, his ship reinforced the U.S. fleet in Pearl Harbor. He and his buddy Homer Bradley were on shore leave when they ran into Sam Carsten doing busy work and who explained how the fleet had been suckered out into a trap by the Japanese Navy. The two expressed sympathy to Carsten who was stuck onshore while his ship was in dry dock and then Dascoli asked about having a good time in Pearl. Carsten told the two about Maggie Stevenson.[29]

Daniel "Dud" Dudley commanded a four man Martin one-decker formation in Captain Shelby Pruitt's squadron when Lt. Jonathan Moss transferred to it in the autumn of 1915. He explained to Moss that the Martin was an overall good aeroplane without many vices but that the interrupter gear sometimes went out of alignment. The first you would know about it was when you shot off your propeller. If that happened, then gliding was your only hope and that the aeroplane was nose-heavy. That had happened to Smitty who failed to land safely and who Moss was replacing.

The formation took to the air for a patrol the next day with Moss in the "tail-end Charlie" position in the formation. When they reached the front, they turned to fly parallel to the lines on the American side since Pruitt had made it clear it was necessary to prevent the Canadians from recovering the interrupter gear from a downed aeroplane. Moss spotted an Avro returning from a scout and broke formation to attack it. With the front-mounted machine gun, Moss found it easier to position himself to fire on the other machine and shot it down.[30]

Charlie Fixico was a chief of the Creek Nation in Sequoyah during the Great War. He eloquently pleaded for Confederate cavalry officer Hiram Lincoln to stay with his men and fight off the US advance on Okmulgee. Lincoln didn't want to dig in, but Fixico created such a scene that Lincoln and his men felt that honor demanded that they stay.[31]

The Confederates and the Creek were able to fight off the advance, and save Okmulgee.[32] However, Fixico was not content long to simply leave things at that. He ordered an attack on US positions around Beggs with the goal of taking back the oil fields. Although Lincoln tried to convince him of the futility of the offensive, Fixico insisted, sending many of his men and the Confederates to their deaths.[33]

Max Fleischmann (d. ca. 1918) was a kosher butcher from New York City's tenth ward. His shop was located on Centre Market Place and, although he was a Democrat who voted for Theodore Roosevelt in 1912, he rented the upper level of his shop to the Socialist Party and Herman Bruck.[34]Flora Hamburger was one of the Socialists who worked out of this space prior to her election to Congress. He felt a certain affection for her, after she helped drive off some members of the Soldiers' Circle who harassed Fleischmann.[35] He provided food for the party on election nights. He even bragged that he'd vote for her when she stood for election in 1918.[36]

Otherwise, Forbes attempted to attract Colleton to himself sexually by a pseudo-intellectual expansion on a theme of contrasts. For her part, Colleton found Forbes to be a dandy (though of course she would not be so rude as to say so), wondered how he had managed to evade military service at the outset of the Great War, and, though she did concede that he was a good-looking man, easily resisted his charms. Forbes eventually gave up his attempts at seduction and moved on to other pursuits.[38]

Captain Elijah Franklin commanded Lt. Jonathan Moss' aeroplane scouting squadron at the beginning of the Great War. When the squadron switched from one man Curtiss Super Hudson pusher scouts to two man Wright-17 tractors, he defended the change to his outraged pilots. He pointed out the Wright had superior cruise, climb and dive speeds which matched the BritishAvro 504s they were facing. Also, the job of scouting was getting more complicated with the addition of a camera so having the observer do the documentation of the enemy formations while the pilot concentrated on flying made both more effective. The pilots were still reluctant to depend on observers for defense since they were the ones with the machine guns but had no choice but to accept the new machines.[40]

Lt. Moss was assigned Percy Stone as his observer. Despite the joke of the names, the two worked well together until Stone was wounded in aerial combat.[41] Moss was grounded due to lacking an observer and Captain Franklin agreed to his transfer to a squadron of new one man Martin one-deckers when the opportunity arose.[42]

Clem Goebel was a citizen of Covington, Kentucky when it was a part of the Confederate States. He was involved in wholesale goods, and mourned the costs the Great War would impose on his business. He considered leaving Covington before the war started, on advice from his cousin Morton, and warned Cincinnatus to do the same, heedless of the limitations Cincinnatus lived under as a black man. While Goebel didn't help Cincinnatus load merchandise into his truck, he did give him a Dr. Pepper.[44]

Griselda was a maid who worked for Anne Colleton at the Marshlands estate.[46] According to Scipio who managed the household staff, she was fairly lazy and wasn't above playing practical jokes on the butler. After a rebuke, he decided to have her fired to which she retorted that she was going to get a job in a factory which would pay better than Colleton ever would.[47]Cherry asked Scipio if she could come out from the fields and take her place to which he agreed. She was then able to use her position to keep Jacob Colleton distracted whilst the Red Rebellion fermented on the plantation.

Heintzelman was a US soldier during the Great War. He was stationed in Kentucky in 1916. He and his comrade Vasilievsky followed Murray's lead and refused to work with Cincinnatus, arguing that he was doing "white man's work" by driving. Their superior, Lt. Straubing, directly ordered them to work and threatened them with court-martial, before storming from the warehouse. Heintzelman and his colleagues thought that they'd bluffed their superior, but instead he returned with MPs and ordered all three arrested for insubordination.[48]

Virgil Hobson delivered the Charleston Mercury, a newspaper read by Anne Colleton. He carried this particular newspaper, as well as a crop of others, by mule to the Marshlands estate. He was an alcoholic, and it fell to Scipio to deal with him as part of the butler's household duties.[49]

During the death throes of the Republic, an escaping Scipio, who had found a chicken in the swamps, ran into Hotchkiss. Hotchkiss demanded that Scipio turn the chicken over to him. Scipio agreed, but then Hotchkiss recognized Scipio as the man he parleyed with months earlier. Before Hotchkiss could draw his firearm, Scipio brained him with a rock, knocking him to the ground and then proceeded to beat him over the head repeatedly until Hotchkiss was dead.[53]

Jake Hoyland was a first lieutenant under Captain Irving Morrell's command in Sonora at the beginning of the Great War. Hoyland was born and raised in Michigan. Morrell didn't think much of Hoyland, figuring that he might one day make captain, but no higher. In the ambush outside Imuris, Hoyland covered Morrell's left flank.[54]

Tom Innis was part of a four man Martin one-decker formation that Lt. Jonathan Moss joined in the autumn of 1915. When they took to the air the next day, Moss observed that Innis was all over the place rather than fixed in formation. Moss couldn't decide if it was because Innis was sloppy or imaginative so reserved judgment.[55]

Heber Louis Jackson (d. 1915?), was a high ranking member of the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-Day Saints. He took part in the Mormonuprising of 1914, but by 1915, he was the only senior member left, making him the de-facto president. Realizing that his situation was hopeless, Jackson surrendered to General Alonzo Kent at Tabernacle Park in the town of Ogden. After surrendering, he was taken into custody and charged with treason for rising against the United States.[58] This was typically a capital crime.

Jonah was a black worker from Marshlands. In the early days of the Great War, he fled the plantation owned by Anne Colleton for Columbia to get a job in one of the factories since white manpower was in short supply. While on the plantation, he was linked to another worker named Letitia, who left with him.[59]

Pete Jonas was a shell jerker at the starboard bow five-inch gun aboard the USS Dakota. In 1915, he was aboard when the Dakota sailed out of Pearl Harbor to hunt for an enemy fleet that had launched a scouting aeroplane. He got into an argument with Luke Hoskins, another shell jerker, over whose aeroplane it was. Jonas maintained it was English while Hoskins claimed it was Japanese. Lieutenant Commander Grady initially didn't know, stopping the argument but then the two started arguing over how much of the fleet had sortied out after the enemy fleet. Grady later confirmed it was Japanese, much to Hoskins' glee and Jonas' disgust.[60]

Harvey Kemmel was US Navy sailor at the outbreak of the Great War. In 1915, he was assigned to pose as a fisherman on board the F/V Spray. The fishing boat was being used to decoy Confederate commerce raiders while towing an underwater submersible. A Midwesterner, Kemmel had never been a fisherman and found the work appallingly hard.[61]

Lefty was a mechanic in Lt. Jonathan Moss' aeroplane scouting squadron at the start of the Great War. An excellent poker player, Moss quickly learned to be wary in any game he was involved in. However, Lefty was a diligent mechanic and pulled his weight in the squadron.[67] Lefty also fleeced the new observers at poker when they joined the squadron. Percy Stone, Moss' observer, lost repeatedly to Lefty despite Moss' warnings but attributed this to his Socialist tendencies to redistribute the wealth. When Stone was wounded during a mission, Lefty rushed up to the landed aeroplane with a stretcher, telling Moss that Stone couldn't die, he still had money that Lefty needed to win. Later, Lefty answered the telephone call reporting that Stone was expected to survive.[68] With Moss lacking an observer, he was grounded until he was transferred to a squadron of new one man Martin one-deckers. Lefty drove Moss to the new airfield and gave him a special pair of dice that would give him a run of sevens if he got into a hot game of craps. Lefty assured him he never needed such dice himself since he depended on skill, implying Moss lacked it.[69]

Letitia was a black worker from Marshlands. In the early days of the Great War, she fled the plantation owned by Anne Colleton for Columbia to get a job in one of the textile plants since white manpower was in short supply. While on the plantation, she was linked to another hand named Jonah. He left Marshlands with her.[70]

John Liholiho (d. 1917) was a Sandwich Islands man who encountered US sailorsSam Carsten and Vic Crosetti after the U.S. conquered the Islands. As his father had been an assistant minister for sugar production in the British administration, Liholiho had received a more "English" education, even speaking with an English accent.

Carsten and Crosetti first saw Liholiho surfing while they were on leave in August 1916. Despite Crosetti's impatience to get on with their leave, Carsten talked with Liholiho for a time about British vs. U.S. rule, and the nature of race relations and occupation, with Liholiho being quite tactful in his interactions with the two Americans. After the conversation ended, Crossetti became convinced that Liholiho might be a British spy, but Carsten didn't quite believe it.[72] However, when both sailors were en route to Chile both reconsidered, and decided to send a letter to the people in charge of the Islands, recommending Liholiho be investigated.[73]

Liholiho was in fact, a British spy. He was investigated, arrested, and sentenced to death. Carsten and Crossetti learned of this in February 1917. Both were promoted for helping to catch him.[74]

Malcolm Lockerby was a sergeant in the CanadianRoyal Winnipeg Rifles, the "Little Black Devils". Early in 1915, Lockerby undertook a solo mission to sabotage a rail line used by the U.S. military. In the snowy darkness, Lockerby skied right over his target, and found his way to the McGregor farm, where he received tea and a moment of respite before he returned to his mission.[75]

Lysis was a Negro laborer attached to a Confederate Marine unit during the Great War. He was also a boxer. In 1915, Lysis toured various Army divisions, boxing their champion Negro boxers. During such a match, Lysis battled Commodus, who was attached to Reggie Bartlett's division, knocking him out in the third round. Bartlett had bet on Commodus. During the fight, he briefly wondered how Lysis would do in a fight with a white man.[76]

Jubal Marberry (d. 1915) was an aged plantation owner who was captured by members of the Congaree Socialist Republic and tried as an "exploiter of the proletariat". Following a very brief trial in a kangaroo court, Cassius, Cherry, Scipio and Marberry's former plantation hand Agamemnon found Marberry guilty, and ordered his execution. Before his execution, he informed the tribunal that whatever they did to him, they would be "hung higher than Haman" when caught. Marberry himself was shot to death.[79]

Lt. Stanley McClintock was a pilot of a Curtiss Super Hudson during the early part of the Great War. He flew as Lt. Jonathan Moss' left wingman when the Canadians forced the scouts to fly in formation rather than in lone reconnaissance missions. For reasons only known to himself, McClintock affected a waxed mustache with spiky, upturned ends that would do for an imperial Balkans nobleman.[80] When the squadron switched to Wright-17s, McClintock was one of several pilots to object to the new, tractor model since it depended on the observer to man a machine gun rather mount it on the nose for the pilot to use.[81]

Murray was US soldier during the Great War. He was stationed in Kentucky in 1916. He and his comrades Vasilievsky and Heintzelman refused to work with Cincinnatus, arguing that he was doing "white man's work" by driving. Their superior, Lt. Straubing, directly ordered them to work and threatened them with court-martial, before storming from the warehouse. Murray and his colleagues thought that they'd bluffed their superior, but instead he returned with MPs and ordered all three arrested for insubordination.[86]

Lt. Nelson was a pilot of a Curtiss Super Hudson during the early part of the Great War. He flew as part of Lt. Jonathan Moss' four man formation when the Canadians forced the scouts to fly in formation for self-defense rather than in lone reconnaissance missions. On one such mission Nelson's aeroplane engine failed to start and so Moss flew the mission one man short. Fortunately, the three pilots did not meet up with a formation of Canadians and returned to the airfield safely.[87]

Dom Pedro IV was the Emperor of Brazil during the Great War.[88] Through most of the war, he kept his country neutral, although both sides actively courted him. In 1917, when it was clear that the Central Powers had the upper-hand, Dom Pedro declared war on the Entente.[89] Brazil's entry into the war bottled-up Argentina, and cut off a valuable supply line to Britain, which helped to accelerate the Entente's capitulation.[90]

Luke Phelps (d. 1915) worked on the fishing trawler Ripple out of Boston, Massachusetts with George Enos before and during the Great War.[91] He and the rest of the crew of the Rippled were captured by the Confederate States and placed in a prisoner of war camp in 1914.[92] While a prisoner, he repeatedly insulted and heckled the prison guards. One guard shot him in anger after Phelps claimed he visualized a toilet bowl as the guard's face.[93]

Captain Shelby "Hardshell" Pruitt commanded a squadron of new Martin one-deckers on the Southern Ontario front in the autumn of 1915 when Lt. Jonathan Moss transferred to it. He assigned Moss to a four aeroplane formation led by Daniel Dudley along with Tom Innis and Luther Carlsen. Captain Pruitt sent the formation up the next day with Moss as "tail-end Charlie" in the diamond formation.[95] On a later mission, Carlsen was shot down by ground fire and killed in the crash. The survivors reported to Captain Pruitt who told them to head off to the officers' club and that he wasn't sending them up the next day, a polite way of telling them to get drunk and sleep it off.[96]

Hampton Ready (d. 1917) commanded the submersibleCSS Bonito, during closing years of the Great War. Bonito operated in the in the same patrol square as the CSS Bonefish. In 1916, he and his wife, Katie, celebrated the birth of their first daughter. Six months later, in the Spring of 1917, while Ready was operating in the Atlantic, he attacked a US convoy and sank a freighter. Unfortunately his boat was detected and severely crippled. Forced to the surface, Ready quickly opened the hatch and threw out the boats papers, weighted in a sack. As he did this, he was shot in the head by George Enos, manning the one-pounder gun on the USS Ericsson.[97] The U.S. Navy initially reported that they'd sunk the Bonefish, a report that amused the commander of the Bonefish, Roger Kimball.[98]

Aaron Rosenblum was a haberdasher and tailor in St. Matthews, South Carolina. In 1917 Anne Colleton came to Rosenblum's shop to purchase a half dozen pairs of stout trousers for herself to hunt Reds in the swamps of the Congaree. At first Rosenblum thought the purchase was for her brother and was scandalized to learn she wanted them for herself. However, as commonly occurred, he did what she wanted.

Rosenblum spoke with strange accent, half Low Country drawl, half guttural Yiddish, that never failed to amuse Colleton, although she succeeded in hiding her smile.[100]

Christopher "Stinky" Salley was in the same unit of the Confederate Army as Jefferson Pinkard. He'd been a clerk in civilian life, and was fussily precise. Their sergeant gave Salley the moniker of "Stinky" because he had evaded bath call one evening. He was quite testy about the nickname.[101] He fought the Red Rebellion in Georgia,[102] and then fought in Texas, until he was wounded in the left hand in January 1917. The wound was serious enough to get him out of the fighting, but by no means serious enough to cause permanent damage.[103]

Willem Schoonhoven was US Navy sailor at the outbreak of the Great War. In 1915, he was assigned to pose as a fisherman on board the F/V Spray. The fishing boat was being used to decoy Confederate commerce raiders while towing an underwater submersible. He was the first to spot the Confederate submersible that the towed Bluefin eventually torpedoed.[104]

Wendell Schmitt was a high ranking member of the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-Day Saints. He was appointed commander of all military forces of the Nation of Deseret, and led his make-shift army in the Mormon uprising of 1914, but by 1915, his forces had reached their limit and were unable to resist the arms of the US Army. Along with what remained of the Desert leadership, he surrendered to General Alonzo Kent at Tabernacle Park in the town of Ogden. When he listened to the harsh terms laid down by the US, he warned General Kent that he would sow the seed of future hatred and bloodshed. Kent chose to ignore him, and after surrendering, Schmitt was taken into custody and charged with treason against the United States.[105]

Emmanuel Sellars was ConfederatePresidentWoodrow Wilson's Secretary of War at the beginning of the Great War. He was present in Richmond when Wilson officially announced that the C.S. would support the Entente in the coming war. Reggie Bartlett saw Sellars from a distance, giving order to various troops. Bartlett feared that Sellars was demanding the troops forcefully control the crowd. Instead, Sellars ordered the troops to fire into the air to force the crowd to pay heed to Wilson.

Maggie Stevenson (b. ca 1890) was the undisputed queen of Honolulu's women of easy virtue during the Great War. It was her practice to promenade in a translucent Hawaiianholoku dress where soldiers and sailors congregated as advertisement. At the time she charged $30 when the going rate was three and gave satisfaction for the money. Her establishment was a half timbered English styled house with customers lining up at a staircase in back. An armed guard would collect the fee then allow the customer upstairs where a second armed guard would direct him to one of four Pullman compartment sized rooms. Inside would be a couch and washstand where the customer would wait until Stevenson would come in through a second door. She would service him and then move on to the next room while the customer dressed and left via a second staircase.[107]

She managed to hold onto her money and invest it wisely. She ended up owning half of Hotel Street by the outbreak of the Second Great War. Her business card said she was a caterer which was true since her operation catered to every appetite.[108]

In 1941 Sam Carsten happened to pass Stevenson on Hotel Street and recognized her, calling out her name in surprise. This amused Stevenson and the two chatted briefly. Stevenson gave Carsten her card with "Anything" written on the back and invited him to present it at the Oceanview which she owned. Carsten did so and to his surprise was treated as though he were an admiral and not a lieutenant.[109]

Percy Stone was assigned as Lt. Jonathan Moss' observer when Moss' squadron changed over to the two man Wright-17. Stone had owned a small photography studio prior to the outbreak of the Great War so it was no surprise the Army had made him a photo-observer for the Wright. Nevertheless, Stone had wanted to become a pilot but had settled for observer when his superiors threatened to make him an infantryman. While Moss had been reluctant to switch over to the Wright since he would be forced to depend on the observer for defense because the machine gun could not be nose mounted on the tractor type aeroplane, Stone worked out quite well.[110]

Stone and Moss found that there was difficulty in speaking between the two while airborne. The engine noise and the slip-stream of airflow made comprehension difficult. The two came up with the idea of using pitot rubber tubing with funnels on both ends as speaking tubes. Each would place a funnel on an ear with the flight helmet holding it in place and the other end with their partner to shout in. When they tried it, the tubes worked well but they were jumped by a formation of Avros. Stone tried to fight them off but was hit by machine gun fire. They were saved by a flight of American aeroplanes and Moss returned to the airfield. Stone was rushed off by Lefty and Byron, a pair of mechanics, to an aid station where he was found to have a collapsed lung and heavy loss of blood but was expected to survive.[111]

Vasilievsky was US soldier during the Great War. He was stationed in Kentucky in 1916. He and his comrade Heintzelman followed Murray's lead and refused to work with Cincinnatus, arguing that he was doing "white man's work" by driving. Their superior, Lt. Straubing, directly ordered them to work and threatened them with court-martial, before storming from the warehouse. Vasilevsky and his colleagues thought that they'd bluffed their superior, but instead he returned with MPs and ordered all three arrested for insubordination.[114]